Barbara Boxer: “My whole life has been dedicated to protecting children, women, the elderly, the infirm, and that is what my current…”

“My whole life has been dedicated to protecting children, women, the elderly, the infirm, and that is what my current position on this issue reflects. I want to ensure pregnancies are safe, that women have prenatal care so they have healthy babies and, yes, when a woman faces a crisis pregnancy, that she can be saved--women, like some of the women in the Senator's own State of Illinois, who have to choose this particular procedure that would be banned by his vote, without even an exception for the health of a woman. I find that position to be inhumane. I want abortions to be safe, legal, and rare. I have to say to my colleague from Illinois, if he wants to go back to the days when abortions were illegal, I could share some stories about people I knew who were made infertile, and many whom I have read about who died. If you want to go there, we will talk about it. But right now we are talking about a bill that is a very important bill because it bans a procedure that women need to have available to them on rare occasions.”